Fremantle Dockers forward Sam Switkowski set for stint on sidelines with hamstring injury

Fremantle is set to take a cautious approach with Sam Switkowski after revealing the damaging forward suffered a hamstring injury against North Melbourne.

Switkowski sat out the fourth quarter of the Dockers’ hard-fought victory on Saturday night with hamstring awareness.

The Dockers revealed on Tuesday the 28-year-old had copped a “low-grade” injury.

“He has a low-grade hamstring injury in an area where we do need to be a bit cautious,” High-Performance Manager Phil Merriman said.

“We’re going to take him through the grades over the next few weeks and see how he responds.”

There is no timeline for Switkowski’s return, leaving a significant hole in attack with coach Justin Longmuir expecting him to miss multiple weeks.

“I know he will miss this week and probably miss a couple weeks if not three weeks,” he told 7NEWS.

“We haven’t got to the bottom of it yet and there’s still a little bit of digging around to do but we think it’s a short-term hamstring.”

There was positive news for Fremantle on Tuesday, with the club revealing Brandon Walker (shoulder), Michael Walters (knee), and Jaeger O’Meara (foot/hamstring) were all tracking to return to the field this week.

Walters had been pencilled in to play for Peel Thunder last week but pulled up sore after training.

However, the veteran is set to finally get back to football alongside O’Meara on Saturday against South Fremantle.

“They (Walters and O’Meara) were very close last week. Given the type of athletes they are, we want to make sure we get them absolutely perfect when we bring them back in,” Merriman said.

“This week, they’ve trained and had a really good session, so it will just be a matter of seeing how they recover and assessing their availability after that.”

Walker has not featured in purple since dislocating his shoulder against the Swans at Optus Stadium in round two.

“He’s (Walker) been banging into all his teammates to make sure his shoulder is alright, and the plan is for him to be playing minutes down at Peel,” Merriman said.